St. Johns Hotel

Johns, a traditional three room pub with a great selection of real ales, a range of sports showing on two TVs, a superb jukebox with literally millions of songs and a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Please like our page to be kept up to date with what's going on in our lovely pub. :-)


History of the St. Johns Hotel

The St John’s Hotel on Queen’s Road was first named the Oddfellow's Arms, located at the east side of the junction of Queen’s Road and Argyle Street, now known as Maple Street. The name was almost certainly a reference to the ‘Friendly Societies’ who may have held their meetings there. Paul Davis recorded in his book Old Friendly Societies of Hull that: - ‘the influence of the movement [Friendly Society] and its popularity in the town may be measured by the numbers of the members of the societies in the procession at the opening of Pearson Park in 1860’. He noted that no less than 4,200 of the various Oddfellow’s branch members attended those celebrations. Following the development of St John’s Wood and possibly also due to the fact that there had been another Oddfellow’s Arms in Hull since at least 1851 (the other in Osborne Street), the pub changed its name circa 1890 to become the more familiar St John’s Hotel, which it remains today. Ltd. The St John’s has survived with little alteration in comparison to other pubs of its type and age and still retains virtually its original layout. The only plan to show the full layout of the building was produced in September 1904 for the Hull Brewery Co. and showed the property before and after alterations to the kitchen areas. It was at this point that the former smoke room to the right of the Queen’s Road entrance was extended back to take-in the original small kitchen. The new kitchen was built as an extension of the property over the old outside ‘back kitchen’, chicken run and sheds. Some of these outbuildings including the old store-room in the yard still survive. The original corner doors to Queen’s Road and Maple Street were sadly closed-up between the wars. With the exception of a few more modern additions the St John’s still retains its 1904-05 layout and rightly deserves its place as one of C.A.M.R.A.’s pub interiors of ‘special heritage interest’ in East Yorkshire.

© Paul L Gibson, Hull 1999